The moniker comes from my kids who coined the term after I returned from a backpacking trip sporting a full, bright red beard. Since I love the outdoors and actually grew up living on a mountain (at 3,849ft Mt. Diablo just barely qualifies), the nickname sorta stuck.

Monday, August 27, 2012

The Waiting Game

The mountains on the other side of the valley where our climb will begin

For those wanting to play along at home you can begin checking whatever updates they post at the following URL beginning on Monday, August 27th at 10:00pm Central Europe Time (aka 1:00pm PST). I have no idea how or how often the tracking will be done. However, between our expected pace and the inevitable delays with tracking technology in remote mountain locations, it's unlikely to be a very exciting site to watch unless, you enjoy waiting.

For us, the game has already begun. We've made our arrangements and rearrangements, multiple shopping trips to town with one more to come yet and still there are 3 hours (3pm) until we can pickup our bibs. After that it's another 3 hours (6pm) until the briefing, then dinner (7pm) which is, of course, another 3 hours before the start. Resting, relaxing and lounging around are unfortunately not on the pre-race agenda.

With time on my hands, I've not much to do but review the initial part of the trail in my head. Trail, of course, is a relative term